It's Time to Raise Your Personal Training Prices

It always surprises me when I visit clubs and their personal training rates have not increased in several years. The majority of our personal training centers that use our Pro Fitness Program increase their rates every year. For instance I just received an email from Kelvin Galbraith, the owner of the Fitness Firm in Burlington Ontario, to increase his personal training rates by $5 per session for all of his packages. We put in an order for his new customized rate sheets and sent an email off to our programming team to adjust his purchase rates in his software. Our program features 9 different one on one packages with multiple financing options that have been carefully designed to maximize sales performance.

I bet the number one reason why clubs are hesitant to raise fees is because they have not been successful selling personal training to begin with. The lack of sales has little or nothing to do with your competition's PT rates or whether or not you charge $40 or $60 per session. Trust me, we've been setting up personal training sales programs for all types of clubs since 1998 and get outstanding results each and every time. If you have a predictable sales system in place with well trained Fitness Consultants who can build value and overcome objections, price will be very insignificant in the bigger picture.

Raising your prices will accomplish several things. It will allow your Trainers a chance to earn more and prove to them that you value their services and appreciate their loyalty and continuing education. It will demonstrate to your members that you value personal training and believe that it is a tremendous investment or indeed the best investment your clients can make. In fact, most clients ask their Trainers when their fees are going to go up because they want to support them in getting a raise. We have had little to no resistance when one of our Senior Trainers moves up to a Master Trainer Level and approaches their clients to let them know their session rate will be increasing by $5 -$10 per session. You also have to take into the consideration the increased costs of doing business today. From processing fees, increased utility costs, equipment maintenance, employee benefits, addition HR costs, etc., club owners must ensure that they maintain at least a 30% profit margin on personal training sales at all times. We're happy to say that all of our clients are monitored and trained to consistently achieve those margins and more.

Call or email your Pro Fitness Consultant to order our new co-branded customized rate sheets for 2011.

Jeff Russo